Unicorn Price
by thundercatwife
Summary: Severus encounters a hilarious and mischievous Unicorn, who by being bent on fulfilling the wishes of readers everywhere, transforms our Potion's Master back into a teenager. Follow Severus and Hermione as they learn what it means to live by the Unicorn Price. HG/SS, No Horcruxes.
1. There She Goes

_This is my first attempt at a Harry Potter Fan-fiction. As usual I do not own Harry Potter or any of the wonderful characters, they belong to J.K Rowling. I make no money off of this, this is purely for fun._

 _I do hope you guys enjoy my take on Severus and Hermione. This fiction is rated M for a reason that will eventually become apparent, so kiddies, get out. Pleasant readings to the rest of the lot._

* * *

Severus was used to this.

This mind numbing, stupid prattle -this duplicitous excuse for a teaching session.

He eavesdropped on a few children sitting in the front most rows of his class.

 _'_ _Is it supposed to look like this?' 'I don't know, just keep stirring.' 'But. I think I added too much flax seed. It's far more yellow…' 'Wait. It's not suppose to be yellow?'_

 _Louses._ All of them. There may as well have been uniformed, tiered termites in front of him.

Oh, yes. He was accustomed to this, just as he was attuned with the familiar headache that was flaring up painfully inside his skull. Tittering and slicing like shattered ice and glass in his frontal lobe, every nuance of voice, stimulating the pain inside. He had barked a few times for silence, which every child obeyed in fearful fervor, unless the conversation of course was whispered and purely academic. He was no fool and kindly refrained from displaying any weakness to the student body. His eyes glided.

 ** _Sweet Merlin and Circe!_**

Severus watched as Goyle (the pudgy goon) in merited disbelief as the boy lifted his mote spoon high above his cauldron, letting the mint colored syrup dribble back into the pot. Some of the treacle-like fluid splashing back into the boys gawking face. Severus gulped his agitation and embarrassment to one of his snakes enamored stupidity. _The shame..._

The fat boy was eyeing the macha colored liquid as if it were chocolate fudge. Severus tossed one of his hided logbooks across the room, clipping the boys head and snapping him back to attention. ' _Still not good enough._ '

The boys ineptitude was easy to remedy.

Punishing a Slytherin was far too similar to self-induced demasculinization.

Severus felt his scowl only grow as every student busied themselves to their work.

Swift and precise, he swept his gaze over the classroom intermittently. Though, whenever his glances came up empty-handed for student idiocy, his scowl could only deepen with boredom.

Did this really have to be the one potion's class that went perfectly…

The only one that didn't have a convenient mishap for him to vent his zealous rages.

 _Blast!_ Of course it was. Just his dammed, blacked, luck. His long fingers gripped his sable feathered quill, great strokes of red dancing from the tip as he furiously marked the exams unfortunate enough to grace his davenport.

The Dark Lord had been most displeased with him as of late. His invaluable excuses becoming less and less tolerated with every visit. He had told that old hogwash codger, the brilliant headmaster, that his presence at the dark lords _"soirees"_ would not be condone without violence much longer, unless of course he brought a significant tribute to Voldemort's feet. The little of merit happenings of Order Members and swift relocation's of secret meetings would not be enough to state the Dark Lords need.

And neither the blueprints nor the scrolls to his own nefarious potions and creations would save his skin from being flayed and his marrow boiled under the Crucitas for much longer. The Headmaster, that old fool, was content with the banal information he was imparting to him, as if his life loss was of little consequence to the Order. A whirl of emotions crept inside –

 _Guilt_ and _shame_ to the thought his life held any significance worth equal fret. No, he needed to rephrase that last, feeble thought. His life loss was of no matter, both men were fools in thinking he was a useful cog in this mechanism. He pressed the quill to the vellum until it broke, red ink laving his fingers.

 _'Oh, how precious, Severus...'_

It had been a while since he was subjected to his own demurely woe-be-me foible, it was a pathetic notion, to allow a pettish nature to be nursed. His agitation growing with his behooving task of watching these little ungrateful shrieklings. He watched them now without his indifferent reserve brooking his commonplace contempt.

He let the black of his eyes boil like tar pools, boring holes into the bowed rows. They had no idea of what played just outside the castle, knew nothing of the stakes, nothing of loss. Ignorance and innocence, how often did those parallel? These blithering dunderheads served no other purpose but to placate his contempt and train his temper to their doltish hellion.

But, there were few with talent… He eyes fell on the mousiest girl with the coppery tawny afro, inquisitive eyes intent on her and Longbottom's Toenail Repair potions. Her eyes gadding from her cauldron, to her lab partners, and then drifting…to him? They locked eyes and he was sure she regretted it, abysmally. She recoiled as if his obsidian eyes slapped her own. A pleasant fluttering besotted his heart, the tiniest of grins tugging at his pressed lips.

 _'Excellent'_

He steepled his fingers over his lap, letting the red ink stain both palms as he uncoiled from his stool and swept through the classroom coolly. He mustn't raise her attentions; the strike was always best when the prey was caught unawares.

One third of the golden trio, shying like a timid calf to the prowling hound. A little slice of retribution was easy to ponder whimsically, but an whole other to act upon. He had the incentive and the means, he eased his approach, flitting about another's station.

Poor and unawares, Miss Granger. The protégée (bleh), the Know-It-All, the evildoer of her own knowledge. She wasted her own intelligence, her own integrity, by being a part of the dour truth. By siding with Dumbledore and the tangible risks, her foolish bravery would kill her intellect and her chance of survival. Her idiocy and her bravery would cost her severely, starting now.

He tutted, swiping his hand across the notes of one wide-eyed Hufflepuff, swathing it in red.

How to go about this little revenge without raising that Scottish wench, McGonagall into retaliation? He observed Longbottom's paltry attempts to understand Hermione and dissuade her assistance upon his sweeping approaches. They knew well that he would punish the Know-It-All's help and practical spoon-feeding of answers. He could strike now but that would be a bland capture. She being a Gryffindor would feel no shame to aiding her comrade, or serving penance for such an act. It was practically encouraged! No, he would let that seed grow. He would let them grow comfortable together thinking that they had outwitted him. He had a much more satisfying plan.

Unnerve Granger's little chick and the nest would surely fall apart.

He would be the snake in the tree and await the spoils of a destroyed nest.

 _Splendid musings!_ He let his eyes slit lazily, enfolding his red hands behind his back as he billowed silently the dour workshop. He snuck upon Longbottom smartly, approaching from behind to brood above him. Longbottom froze, his hands currently stupefied with his paring knife poised above a bine. Severus adventured placing his hand onto the table, now fully leaning over the terrified boy like a guarding awning. The boy paled considerably, as his greatest fear watched him intently do nothing.

Severus snorted sardonic, "Do continue. I'm in marvel to how you've kept a steady hand these past lessons." The boys hand wigwagged nervously above the long vine, reluctant to even endeavour a stab at the plant. Hermione remained stone still next to the pair but fixed with undaunted interest.

Severus purred dryly, "Mr. Longbottom. Do I sense some pitiful manifestation of trepidation? Could it be that your miraculous upturn of skill was merely a fluke?"

"I…I…Proffess..sss..or." The sweating and trembling boy tried.

"Do curb the blithering of your tongue. _Longbottom._ " His name came out in a cadence of unsweetened disgust. "One's name should not be stammered, less you are the incarnation of a jack drill." A rouse of suppressed laughter ejaculated from the lips of a few nearby students. Neville went from light red to a wine-colored puce, tears watering his eyes.

Severus relented, lifting from the boy's side knowing the first rolling marble of his plan was well in motion. His hand peeled from the table top, leaving behind a stamp of crimson ink.

Now that Longbottom was effectively sissified by his presence, the toll would befall the Gryffindor princess.

He licked the run of his teeth, his scheming having worked up his finicky appetite. He kept to the catty corner of the chamber, feigning interest in the Slytherin's that occupied the more shadowy section of the room. Noticing Hermione leaning against and comforting Neville.

He shammed lassitude to the painfully obvious _'tete-a-tete'_ between the two friends, the curly-haired chit trying to inspire a bravado for her cowed housemate. Through the quick, steely glances he sparsed to afford, he noticed the rapid, downfall of Longbottom's concentration- in glorious spite of his partner's affectionate and mulish efforts.

And if possible, even more dark pleasure coursed through him at the notice of Hermione's cauldron in the beginnings of neglect. Her attention completely off her own potion, intent only to repair her comrades esteem and project from complete failure.

Her own Toe Nail Repair potion once the correct green was blackening into an ebon oil, tumescent and burbling, the inky grease crusted the rim of the cauldron before with a soppy burp it foamed over in a mushroom head of mucky bubbles.

 _En garde, Miss Granger. En garde._

He crowed privately, descending on the Gryffindor princess with a scowl deep enough to shame a trench. "Miss Granger! What is the meaning of your insolence!?"

Hermione whirled and in a panic to prevent her cauldron from exploding, tossed the cauldron off the burners, effectively dumping the fouled contents upon the table and the stone floor. A puff of smoky putridity wafted about the room from the accidental spill.

It was noted previously in class, that the potion was non-toxic and thusly harmless. But to his delight, that would not stop his plunge into her humiliation. He forcibly jetted in front of her, uncaring to scourgify the mess and save his students from the fetid stench.

 _'_ _All the better to demean you.'_ He articulated this silently in his features, as a wide-eyed, blanched and completely gobsmacked Hermione stiffened for the worst tongue-lashing of her life.

" **Granger!** By what breed of inattention and ineptitude allowed you to grace our classroom, do pray tell?" His snarled darkly, smoke whirling about the room along with moans and cries of distress from her school mates.

Despite the sudden mortification and wheeziness, she refused to be quailed to the unwarranted, verbal assault. "I was distracted, sir."

"That was not my question, Miss _Granger._ Seems you're spiralling into the slow recline of lunacy that accompanies your house!" Severus shot his eyes to Neville, who practically moaned his fear at knowingly being caught in service of Hermione's assistance. "Seventy Points will be taken from Gryffindor for your negligence and sheer stupidity. Do not think for once I do not know what warranted this display of pure audacity, Granger and Longbottom." Severus flicked his dark laurel wand deftly, sweeping up and vanishing the horrifying mess much to the relief of the entire Potions class.

"It was an accident, Professor. I certainly did not mean it. I have never had an incident before." It came out more dolorous that Hermione initially hoped. Severus scowled in unabashed repugnance, leaning forward like a bowing cobra.

"I suppose you think your jejune nature gives you the license to blunder unacceptably?" Severus sneered, slamming his hands down onto the table. "You're a dunce if you willingly allow yourself to be a fool and if not an outright danger to my class."

"I…" Hermione was wordless as her body tightened to the hurtful insult, glancing around and noticing the critical stares of her peers. Her frizzy mop unable to hid the deep, shamed fluster on her face as her eyes realigned with her Professor. "I'm sorry…" It was these unexpected words, that brought out an unidentified emotion within him, the closest thing he could establish with this foreign intuition was perhaps, _exasperated protectiveness?_ He had meant to belittle her and blow off some steam, to reciprocate the annoyances that came from brooding the golden trio for nearly seven years and stem the flow of indignation of his own predicaments and wrath. But this simple apology struck deep and oddly, like a curious and wayward thorn that sprouted from concrete rather than greenery.

Miss Granger was suppose to defend herself. Not apologize...

She shouldn't apologize. He was not worth it. A part of him tided over the melancholy with a self-disgust so feral and out-wrought that he saw only red. Then a prided part of him frowned in revulsion and confusion, was this the great Know-It-All, defeated by a Snape worthy jest?

How was she to face the Dark Lord? If she can't stomach a jab from a grumbling, old mingy bat of the dungeons. His fury was nigh unstoppable as his eyes and voice positively boiled to her sincerity. And for a moment, just one moment…She reminded him of _Lily._

 _Kind_ and _beautiful_ Lily. **Dead** Lily.

He snarled, "Do you not wish to grow up, Miss Granger? To have your intellect on par with adept minds? Or will you settle like any other chit that belies mistakes, and flaunts them as excusable trails of life' and grow into having an unnecessary litter of rowdy little screamers? Or will you become a foolish, lonely hen with nothing but spite and gossip to drown out the loss of your own dreams? Is this what you aspire to be? A silly girl with notions of grandeur but with nothing to merit that you deserve it? But as far as I can deduce with your current recklessness, you won't even make it far enough to make those omissions. Whether it's the next exploding cauldron, or your attentiveness to coddle milksops, or your blind jumps of faith into certain demise. I can assure you, you'll drag more than yourself into death. You don't have the privy Gryffindor princess to demand convenient intervention for your ever-mounting miscalculations. You'll get yourself killed and surmount to little less than the potion you've dribbled all over my classroom! Wasted and disposed!"

He was winded by the end of his rage, the entire class had quietened to the volume of a dormouse. The only sound that punctuated the hold of silence, was the steady and dulcet sobbing of Miss Granger.

Shit.

Disturbed astonishment was in order to the Granger girl's current emotional display. The express of her grief and humiliation was not at all titillating or exciting in even the most bored fare. In fact, it immediately had an adverse affect of annoyance and poignant remorse, two involuntary reactions that did not fair well against the distress of his already crushing migraine. In the floating wake of his detonation, he realized that his nape and shoulders were shivering under the voltaic release of accidental magic. No doubt, when he had been howling, sparks and bolts of sizzling magic had undulated off of him.

Blivets and Goblins!

He rubbed the back of his neck to tame the pins and pricks, only to grimace as he painted red ink across the pale of his spine. Should he try and repair the situation, dismiss the class and invite her into his quarters, seat her in the seete and console her with tea… or pinch her nose and force Calm Draught down her gullet. The latter was far more appealing by far.

He counted to ten before eyeing the weeping girl again and immediately dismissed the entire compassionate folly.

She stood cowed and mortified, frizzy locks of caramel twittering with her own magical release, subtle volts of lightening that practically fettered around the coils of her abysmal mane. Her hands blinded her as she cried into them, sloppy and impassioned tears rivery between her little fingers and thin wrists.

Children cried to gain attention.

Adults cried to express powerful emotions.

Either way, he wanted no part of the histrionic ritual. It was uncouth and embarrassing, and he had little patience for it. Whereas, other cockamamie wizards and witches would be moved to compassion and benevolence to such a bravura, he was not so easily persuaded by something as ridiculous as the ministrations of the eye.

Less of course, it was of Potioneer importance and cultivation. He crossed his arms, snorted unimpressed and rather discommoded. The effects of her banshee antics would barter no more affection than if she was shamelessly wheedling.

"Do control yourself, Granger. This is not the time nor the place for such piteous frivolity." He snipped, leading the girl unceremoniously to the door by the arm. But too his dismay and rising anger, she rollicked like a spaz mare and bellered at him an Irish insult, he wasn't sure how she learned to this day.

"May the cat eat you! And may the devil eat the cat! You heartless git!" Then she tore off as if Gwyn ap Nudd himself and his kennel of white spectral hounds were licking her heels out the nave-styled circum of the dank dungeons.

Severus fumed, clamouring onerously both into the hall and class, "Fifty more points subtracted from Gryffindor! For deplorable conduct!"

"Oy! You made 'Mione cry! You mingy arse!" The ginger boy, the little troll, Ron Weasley had raised himself from his seat, his face purpled as a beet. Snape nearly gabbled out an venomous incantation for a wandless hex, prickly stomach. ' _But no, it wouldn't do.'_

He stopped himself, flicking the curtain of hair free of his piercing glare with his forefinger and sloe wand. The boy must have simply rolled off his rocker. Severus made a slow, rage clunked turn.

"Do my ears deceive me? Or have you and the entire house of Gryffindor suffered simultaneous brain damage? Fifty more points, Weasley." It came as a surprise that the boy wonder, Harry Potter was the one to mediate peace, as he pulled Ron down back into his seat and tried to calm the simple boy.

Severus sniffed the air and his mood worsened, if at all possible into a lower depth of defcon. He growled as if his tongue was rolling a sour lozenge. "Stasis spells? Did no one care to remember one of the most key contrivances in Potions?" The children went from dumbfounded to mortified in a few seconds, all now intently checking their potions and exclaiming their surprise and disappointment. Severus took the stance of an angry feline, his shoulders and back taunt as he swivelled his head and gave the student body a glare that could curdle dragons milk.

"Does no one have at their disposal the basic human sense of smell? I'm severely disappointed! It seems I have a flock of brain stunted, anosmia ridden abnormalities for students. Class is dismissed! You will all receive a Troll for this anathema of time!" The students with their tails tucked between their legs made their way for the door after quickly tidying out their work places. Severus didn't even have the energy to detention both Weasley and Potter to clean out the mucked up cauldrons, they bolted far before he could muster enough of his usual vehemence.

Instead he cracked his neck contrariwise, rolled his wrists, rotating his spindly fingers before proceeding to hand-wash every bollixed cauldron muggle-style. Much like his mother used to, but without the croon of blasphemy most excellent.

* * *

A long walk would bring peace of mind; Severus was often told. But it seemed that wandering only covered more ground for impromptu discoveries, and being a Potion's Master of Hogwarts and Head of House, more often than not, it brought nothing but rotten and unpleasant news.

He endowed a specialized gait out of necessity to gain a moments freedom, his swooping and billowing strides perfected to outpace the harbingers of reports and part the seas of students that impeded his voyage.

But not all talents and not all swift tramps, no matter how imposing and impressive, can navigate the sticky perils of fate, and certainly not ones of magical influence.

As Severus hurdled willowy down a corridor of antediluvian architect, admiring ancient and primitive ingresses into deeper passageways the led to caverns festooned with treasured tapestries, he was disturbed by a Slytherin Prefect with two of his house tangling from his bandy arms.

Severus gave a dry huff of commendation to the traveling Prefect, who then approached in thick aired respect for his Head of House, tugging his two first year prisoners in line to face the music.

 _Bel Canto Severus._

"Professor Snape." The ashen haired prefect addressed, his eyes of dusty hazel thick with agitation and vex. Severus peeled from the shadow of the cavernous hall, his voice although wizened by the trail of the disastrous day with Granger and his Potions class, was still sparsely dewed with praise for the Prefect, one of his favorite snakes.

"Nathair," It was a rare instance that Severus addressed anyone by their first name. But the male student paid no heed to it, which Severus was always thankful for. The two little snakes hung their heads, fiddling with either their robes or hands, unquestionably guilty but of what. Nathair gave them a push forward, not wishing to address their actions to the Head of House if they were perfectly adept to.

If not for the scowling threat of the Potions Master, the little ones would have succumbed to Nathair's fearful reputation, as an Wizarding pugilist, a Hogwarts's champion nonetheless, Nathair Mathe was regarded as fearsome. The sport was bloody and brutal and undeniably skillful and not for the faint. Where wandless hexes and contact-to-contact magic was employed with muggle fighting styles. The two first year's boys shivered at their first heartily attempt to evade the Prefect, only to be grappled and shocked with a wandless Stunning Hex.

The first boy, a dark haired and spackled pubescent with a pixie nose, piped up. " P-Professor Snape, we were only trying to…have fun. We only wanted to prank those Hufflepuff boys."

"Prank? As a Slytherin, you should be well aware that such folly and nonsense is below you. And, if you would progress the story without such dawdling excuses. I'm not paid a galleon for every word you articulate nor by the minutes you will purchase from me." Snape quipped tiresomely, picking invisible grit from his wool sleeves and silken cufflinks.

The little boy obviously now dampened of his bravery, shouldered his light-haired friend to speak in his gawked stead. This young lad, did not dawdle and went to point with a huff of guilt. "We wanted to place Blast-Ended Skrewts in the bedding. I got the Skrewts from my brother who lives outside the school, he thought it would be a bit of good fun. But we ended up, erm not securing the cage properly in our dorms and they got loose…"

Severus raised one distinctive brow, glaring down his hooked nose, unperturbed by the boy's moronic behaviour. He found himself hardly caring. He thoughts elsewhere and rather polluted by a certain petulant, frizzed haired, disrespectful ingénue.

Fact was, while Severus could care less for the girls distressed state, he was behooved to the responsibility of all Hogwart students since he was a hire. Having owled Dumbledore shortly after the appalling potion's lesson, he had learned that Granger had not returned to the Gryffindor Tower nor was she occupying any of her normal haunts. McGonagall was furious, not with the Gryffindor princess of course, but with him.

As if his lecture and discipline of one of her little lions was unfounded and grossly austere. He bit his cheek, ticking his gangly fingers. If he had remembered correctly, past fracas between him and the Marauder's had earned him chiding reproofs and tanned hands by the very same Scottish witch on more than one occasion. The biased head of house could not see the deviations of her own flock, pity she hadn't the chance in her youth to spit out a babe or two. Least it would have curbed this nonsensical mothering temperament she paraded. He couldn't stand her rose-colored glasses, when her own house hardly contained Saints.

But there was this one curious innuendo in regards to the Granger girl that was rather vexing to the Potions Master, who by all implications was a misanthrope and a fond cynic of children. And if not that, he was a loather of her allegiances, her eggheadedness and uppity, and above all chary to her flagrant displays of tears.

But, somehow…

Yet, he felt guilt to her disappearance and an unshakable sense of wrongdoing. Try as he might to temper these fickle and unwelcomed feelings, they clotted in the back of his heart like a turgid venom. He wouldn't want to admit that perhaps this foray to patrol the castle grounds was more than routine, and he certainly wouldn't want to confess that he fostered any concern for the Granger girl.

 _'_ _No, absolutely preposterous!'_ This icky feeling was only the manifest of some absurd compunction to his loss of control when dealing in the cards of his dammed stress.

 _'_ _I harbour nothing. I_ bask _in oblivion. I invoke naught.'_ He chanted the intonation silently, embracing the familiar smoke and water of his Occlumency until he felt solid and unbreachable. Mentally rescinding any sprouts of unnatural affection, the walls now firmly in situ.

He eyed the boys dismissively and detached, seething out a breathy snit. "You both will receive detention tomorrow with me. There you will prepare the rather taxing anti-venom for Skrewt bites and will do so without any complaints." Then he limpidly inquired to Nathair, "Were any stung? Mr. Mathe."

"Three first years. I've already taken them to the Infirmary and shall see to keeping an extra eye on these two hooligans. Have a good day, Professor." He stated gruffly, guiding the boys back down the corridor by the necks.

Ah, he admired that boy and his ability to depart on key and if not his pizzazz.

The primordial grotto he stood in chilled, the scones along the cavern flickering their cradled candle flames. Only the hardiest of gales were able to penetrate into the deep capacious corridors of the castle's ancient vaults. Sneering, he paced up the stony halls until breaking free from the castles morassing veins, to a threshold that over looked the lea between the forbidden forest and the school. Irriguous and dark thunderclouds gathered above the horizon, soon to venture over the loch and vale. He would need to procure some singing daises from Madame Pomfrey before the storm descended, the flowers were required for the Skrewt balm.

He could be nice and just allow his little snakes to use the already harvested and bottled flowers from his private stores, but it would be so much more pleasurable for him if he could see their faces twist and wince as they dissected plants fully capable of articulating their pain.

Vehemently.

It would undoubtedly teach those delinquent serpents for shaming their house.

He eyed the storm again, unnerved as the wind ruffled the crowns of some nearby pines. He was sure that Granger would be discovered and grossly coddled come supper, and that she couldn't possibly be dimwitted enough to be caught outside in the coming squall. Though, he harboured no notion of fondness nor approval for the astigmatic cub, he would readily admit that she was the smartest of the golden trio and an invaluable support for Potter… and regrettably as such, he would wish her no harm. _At least not permanent..._

He clasped and cinched tight the brouhaha of unintelligible thoughts that tried to escape the shields of his Occlumency. Fiercely growling mentally, 'Come hither.' As if he was chiding his inner child.

His sharp mind groused a brief complaint from within the dome of his forced control. The last carp, sounding something suspiciously like, 'Hermione.' But who was he to believe in the ramblings of a lonely and pained mind. Billowing up the dark sails of his cloak with a flick of his wrist, he flitted like a sun running shadow towards the Greenhouses.

"I harbour nothing." He recited hushed, scowl evident upon his sallow face.

In the shuddering copses at the thinning edge of the dark forest, a pair of twinkling eyes studied the Potion's Master with an seeable and undaunted glow of panglossian.

* * *

 _I have the next three chapters in editing, unfortunately_ _the second chapter is the one undergoing the most change. So you'll have to wait for it._

 _I would also like to make note in regards to what my beta reader Hyperlink has pointed out. Hermione's flat out whine and cry fest is completely out of character. I absolutely 100% agree. Next chapter she gets to redeem herself just a bit. I needed her to be a bit of a Sensitive Susan just this once! (forgive me)_

 _And by tradition( my own of course) I will impart a dollop of Unicorn trivia for every chapter. Ahem. Here we go._

 _ *** Unicorns literally missed being taken onto Noah's Ark because they were too busy playing.**_

 _ *** Unicorns signify unconditional love and grace.**_

 _ *** Unicorns are known also as Re'em and Monocerus.**_ _ **(Or you know, a narwhal.)**_

 _Other ridiculous_ _footnote ramblings... You all get cookie for making it this far._

 **"May the cat eat you and may the devil eat the cat"** _(It is an actual Irish insult. Hermione is not Irish, I just fucking love this insult.)_

 _ **My muse only consumes feedback and Bacardi Razz, so please, don't let her starve. As we all know Bacardi Razz is shit.**_


	2. A Little Mess

_Read on and let me know what you think. Notes below._

* * *

Her hands hurt and bled after striking the trunks of some nearby trees, when her knuckles swelled and peeled, she began to claw at the spindly and laced branches nearest to the forest floor in anger. And when breaking the feeble twigs failed to state her, she moved for her wand and commenced to perform some of her most aggressive and violent spells on some conveniently placed boulders. She howled and snarled her pique, the wounded animal inside Hermione Granger out for blood.

Hermione felt like a little idiot, for crying so helplessly in class. A bedlam of disbelief, anger, and unhappiness birthing thoughts that had no place in her mind. Itchy and uncomfortable thoughts and meanderings about cruel, old, nasty and ugly Professor Snape.

Tears seemed to be a staple these days.

She whipped her hand, thrashing the rocks with a boiling and corrosive curse. Her wand sung in the violence of the spells release, trilling like a stroked champagne flute. The faces of stone melting and billowing out smoke. How could she have let the Professor wiggle his way under her skin?

 _Thwack! Crack!_ Another volley of raw power unleashed against the stones, unyielding waves rippling from the lashings of her wand. She had promised herself not to let him in! It was foolishness to have been offended by him. He was a sadistic scrutineer and to blame a horse for it's kick, or a dog for it's sniff, was to blame the natural orders themselves. The wicked Potions Master had acted out within the grounds of his entitlements, merely a wicked creature of natural law. She should not have expected anything else from him, for after all, it was she who went abound from her constitutions.

By apologizing, she had done both him and her wrong. _Screeeeech!_ She trained her wand steadily to the boulders and let the bolts of magic bore into the rock, watching as the boulders crumpled and melted like hot wax. What had she expected him to do? Relent and beg pardon? Embrace her and tell her everything would be alright? That the Dark Lord could not harm them?

She breathed in-

 _I'm a stupid, foolish git._

Then out-

 _..Professor._

She dropped to the ground. Her frizzy hair an abominable mess, as she tasked her trembling hand to calm the locks. She rubbed her raw and chafed cheeks with her robes, satisfied when no more dampness soaked through them.

It had started out as a healthy curiosity about the snarky Potioneer. After hearing about Harry's failed lessons with Occumlency the year before, she had learned about her friends unintentional delve into the Professor's memories. Harry had viewed one of the Potions Masters most private memories at the expense of Snape's rage and immediate ejection from his teachings. These were two privileges her friend would never know how lucky he was to have partook in. But Hermione did, and she regularly felt the sting of jealousy to her friend's concession into her favorite teacher's counsel.

 _A secret favorite,_ her mind reprimanded quickly.

It was a wish beyond wishes that she could have viewed the memories only described to her second-hand. She did not want to pity the cankerous man nor did she want to view the memories for malicious intent. No, she wanted to state and solve the enigma of this man of interest.

If he could not appreciate her knowledge for her studies, perhaps he could acknowledge her for her intrusion into his tortured complexities. It was a ridiculous thought, that someone as private as Snape would applaud her encroachment into such materials and she supposed, that was undeniably true. How many days had she falsely contented herself to do nothing, to shake her coat of her inquisitiveness?

It hadn't been too hard, with war looming and death setting in like dust into every crevice of life. But in the aspect of finding solace in her friends when they were shrouded in their own sorrows, she could not find the dark bravery nor the intellect akin in her friends that Professor Snape exhibited. She found only the comforts of friendship and light, not the steel of villainy to do what was right no matter the cost. There was only one soul that she found homogenous to her own, and what price would she not pay for him to guide her into the morose of her own nature.

She felt indubitably alone and tortured by her own developing convictions and interests in the Dark Arts. It had started innocent enough, with her only researching the malefic subject with the philosophy of learning to fight with what her enemies fought with. But soon had nosedived into fascination and absorption from reality, the dark knowledge fanning her imagination and desire to rise above and protect those she loved with more than adequate force.

But it felt wrong, like she was shaming her parents with every word she read. As if she was the one spitting out the filthy word, _"Mudblood."_

It was her new books fault. She had purchased it from Flourish and Blotts during the festival of Deipnon, when she was sojourning London.

It was a large book, about the girth of a paving stone swaddled in calf skin, the fine pelt stitched along the cover. It was rare and had been expensive, far too expensive for a student. But she had bought the ugly, calf-skin spell book anyways. The owner had been happy to be rid of it. It was a spell book of Hecate, dangerous and dark, but yet it was lovely and had beautiful embellishments. It even had a fore-edge painting of cypress boughs. The paper was vellum, but not of calf or lamb. And the ink was made of soot, animal glue, and something unnameable. The endpaper was crinkled, water penetration having bubbled beneath the glued papercover. It read on the inner cover, scrawled in black letter: **(The Republic of the Unholy Women.)** Watermarked beneath it's benefactors title were the three faces of Hecate.

She kept the book hidden. Which was ridiculous.

She didn't want others to see it. That was even more troubling to her.

She had seen what had happened to Ginny with Tom Riddle's diary. Books could be nefarious things.

She knew the limits, it would keep her safe. The book could only harm her if she let it.

As it were, she hadn't touched or perused the thing since last week.

She wanted to touch it.

She wanted to read it.

She wanted Snape to teach her the pages. It was strange, she never used to dream so fervently until she started to hide the Book of Hecate underneath her mattress. The dreams had become disturbing, pestering and oddly erotic in their visits. The dreams would abduct her violently, force her to succumb to pleasures she repressed, and abandoned her just so suddenly and unprovoked, that it would leave her breathless, sweating and painfully aroused in her four-poster bed in the early mornings.

She had to place silencing charms around her Prefect Bedroom every night, just to make sure that none of her classmates could hear her howls and moans of ecstasy. She was positive that some of her screams, if left unchecked could be heard from the dungeons. She had such fitful dreaming sessions, that once or twice, her keening cries had terrified and maddened her Half-Kneazle, Crookshanks, to clawing down all of the heavy velvet curtains adorning her chambers.

She had charmed some ear muffs for him after that.

She had been reluctant to remove the book from beneath her mattress. She enjoyed the uninvited pleasure. It was sensuous and carnally fulfilling. And if the dreams didn't drag her to the peaks of euphoria, nothing would. Sex was a messy and unnecessary exercise of the night, a strange calling that possessed people of wanton rule. The prospect of being dominated for another's gratification, or by being aroused with someone doing just that, was truly terrifying to her.

She had tried for the pursuit of hedonism but it brought little more than frustration and mortification when her ministrations proved both painful and messy, leaving her vastly unrewarded. The infamous female orgasm was as disproportion and unfathomable as flying pigs to Hermione. Celibacy was easier to live with than being reminded of being incapable of a climax.

It hadn't been until a certain Professor had infiltrated her dreams at night for a liaison, that she had discarded her book into the furthest reaches of her chambers out of pure horror.

Her dreams were mostly imagined and created by fractured images, and distortions of familiar men. Mostly male models, or actors that she found attractive would become the nightly visitor. Even features of her friends, Ron's lopsided smile or Harry's cheekbones and irises could frequent the erotic phantom.

But never, never him. _Never Professor Snape._

But he had been present in her latest fantasy... with the book splayed between them, his elegant fingers pinching the amber fragranced lamina of the paper. He would cleave the book in two with a slip of his hands, spindly fingers sifting and probing for cites that would appeal to her. If she was lucky, a plume of henna and honey motes would sail up from the deepest creases of the bindings. She would lay there before him, with her hair tangled tight in her hands, her little fingers twirling and be perfumed by the books.

Listening and _listening_ to his baritone voice intone the passages and vivify her hunger. But he would not state her, he would only let her nibble at the morsels of knowledge he served and leave her cramping for more.

His hands rough and calloused, would guide her own and force her fingertips to run across the pages. The depressions of the quill's path on the paper would be a tactile experience. The grainy and impure surface would comb against the tines of her fingers, oh the sensations, that perverse touch would quaver up her wrist bones into the delicate flesh of her neck. A supernova would bloom there, in the soft slopes of her collar, stars filling her vision like clouds of opium.

He would lean in then and sotto voce.

His fingers traveling with her own on the tract pressed between them, playing with her.

His lips moving. Sweet nothings rolling over the cusp.

His voice purling right there below her ear.

She'd awoken, flushed and aroused, and had snatched the book from it's cache beneath the bed and had locked it away into her toiletry chest. Sealing it further with more than an adequate amount of charms and wards. And there it had remained imprisoned for the past week, steadily burning a hole in her resistance and will power.

Hermione shook her head, gripping her vine wood wand tighter. Perhaps it was her loneliness and confusion that had derailed her into seeking understanding and partnership with Snape - And in turn caused her to have this improper dream.

The book preyed on her. _It was fascinating and terrifying._

The book was obviously unscrupulous and heathenish. It had not taken a sexually adventurous dream with her Professor to realize this. The spell book, besides being a collection of dark spells and rituals, seemed to hold a oppressive sway on the reader. Hermione had noticed this affliction more often in the morning, just after waking and sometimes throughout the day, if she let her mind slip. It was a lucid experience traveling with one's skin and body but not being attached to it.

She would walk the halls like Hermione Granger.

She would talk like Hermione Granger.

But that girl, who looked just like her, wasn't her. The out-of-body experience heightened her impressions of people too, she noticed the way her peers perceived her, helpless now to find retreat in the volumes of books or studies around her as she normally would. She could see and hear the mocking from the Hogwart girls, as they insulted her frilly hair and her closeness to Harry and Ron. She could see the way the teachers looked at her and compared her to other students inadequacies, as if she had no faults of her own. And, she could see the interest and heat in the eyes of the male students when she passed by or spoke to them.

She noticed the way Ron looked at her now... She groaned, tossing a pebble into the nearby brush.

 _She was in deep shit_ and what was worse, she needed _Snape_ to get her out of it.

 _Nasty and awful,_ Snape.

He was the only one in the school she oddly felt comfortable enough to discuss the _'book'_ with. She couldn't imagine herself reveling the said book to Dumbledore or Professor Mcgonagall. A part of her twinged with the excitement of discussing the complicated rituals and clandestine spells with Professor Snape, to have a real intellectual conversation and tutoring.

But another part of her, was afraid, very afraid that he would turn on her and destroy her coveted tome.

But she would have to eventually risk it. She needed to understand this books hold on her, and get it under control, before it dominated her.

Keeping it locked up in a toiletry chest was hardly a viable solution. But, neither was destroying it.

She had tried to treat him with respect and compliance in order to please and appeal to him. But he had viewed it as an pathetic attempt of inveigle to both escape punishment and invoke pity, which was not true… She just wanted him to see her, to see her as a human who needed his help.

 _Great, just great, Hermione._ She chastised herself, it wouldn't do, if she began to pine after her Potion's Professor and succumb to the Dark Arts all in the same semester.

A few blackbirds in the high trees chose to sing now, flitting among the bluebottle and high pines. She eased back from her knees and leaned onto her bottom, seemingly only now noticing the meadow she rested in. The clearing was covered in beautiful cornflower weeds and somewhere nearby she could decipher the noises of a brook. The Forbidden Forest was always so…mollified nowadays.

The thought of his rejection and disappointment in the class today hurt, but who could blame her when she had no clue how to venture a path she was sure to take, and the only soul she could ever confess her fears to was to a man, she could never do so with. He was a Slytherin, who would never understand and never chose to understand a Gryffindor girl like her. It would not matter how hard she fought to gain purchase at his side now. In helping Neville, she may as well have drained the hogshead and lit the match, for she burned the frail bridge between her and Professor Snape today.

Not that there was really one in the first place anyways. _Probably for the best_.

Hermione groaned, pinching her nose. Remembering now that she had called him a git too. She would undoubtedly pay dearly for that.

Picking herself up off of the ground, she brushed off her robes, not before noticing that her forearm was painted with red ink, the unmistakable shape of the Professor's slender fingers. She blushed lightly in anger, digging her fine nails into her palms and watching the tendons of her forearm bulge against the marked skin. Fishing out a handkerchief from her robes, she viciously rubbed off the smeared hand print, fresh tears threatening to spill forth.

"Stupid…stupid…" She began, still rubbing the barathera kerchief against herself. "If only you had noticed what was bothering me today, _Professor…_ " She needled sourly, scrapping her tongue on her teeth upon the last word.

"I bet you would have if you hadn't been placed in Slytherin all those years ago and their bigotry hadn't bloated your mind. You would have _seen._ You would have _understood."_ Hermione took a trembling breath, gazing deep into the woods. It felt good to voice her thoughts. "I suppose if you had been placed in Gryffindor, you wouldn't have had the troubles you have now. I think that Harry's father, James wouldn't have picked on you so much and maybe Lily would still have been your friend. Or at least I think you would have been happier. I'm not happy." She thought better on her words, furrowing her delicate brow, "Or maybe it would have been just the same or worse. But, if you had been sorted into Gryffindor with me, Ron and Harry, you would be my best friend right now. No doubt about it." She thrummed happily but the sound caught in her throat as she realized her words.

Her and Snape… _Friends?_ Or better yet, Snape a _Gryffindor…?_

 _Great Gods, Hermione. You have officially lost it!_

A tremendous and gaiety laugh shook her entire body, from the tips of her springy curls down to the feet in her boots, she laughed like she would never laughed again. In the throes of her joy, she mistakenly dropped her soiled hanky to the cornflowers below.

* * *

Severus rubbed his head with his slender forearm, trying to steel back the pulsing tension headache that persisted in being a hindrance today.

It was _foul_. Trying to communicate with the pudgy, flesh-rosy and rather displeased Professor' Sprout with this crippling headache blooming in his head. The agony felt as if all the skin of his scalp had been tethered back into a mad spindle.

At this moment, Severus felt victimized and very _very_ annoyed.

Did every dammed teacher here care so much for these student's trifling feelings? Judging by Sprouts' scrunched face and insufferable need to belabor him, he supposed they did indeed.

How in cripes did information circulate so fast in this institution?

He tired to snort but the action of moving the planes of flesh on his face, even the insignificant little muscles of his beak was far too agonizing.

He settled for a mordacious repartee.

He would have left, none the wiser. But he needed those damn plants.

Dear Merlin, he just needed those plants! Did every female within the grounds have to square with him today!?

"Sprout. I do insist, most forcibly that we get on with this. As for your concerns with Granger, I have discussed the situation thoroughly with the Headmaster and his… _Deputy_. The contretemps' has been dealt with satisfactorily to par with the Headmaster's _usual_ acumen." He smirked to his dodgy quip, grinding his crooked teeth to the jarring discomfort of the headache.

He continued. "I suggest you relent from the grapevine, not all idle talk is worth gold coins." The herbologist teacher fumed, ripping off her leathered gloves and jabbing him in the chest with one, fat, pointed, judging…finger.

"Severus." She retorted, finger still daringly placed upon him.

"Snape." He corrected, nonplussed on how to react to his aging co-worker without violence.

 _Bone-breaking violence…_

"You are too unpleasant to the girl! She deserves better from you!"

Deserves _better…?_ That little chit?! How dare-!

"You are her _mentor!_ You are the one to mold her! And in that fact and that fact alone, she deserves the same doted respect as any one of your potions!" Severus removed her chubby finger from his frock front, inadvertent to even acknowledge that nonsense.

"Honestly. I have seen better advice in drivel tabloids." He tutted, taking his booted foot a step across the threshold of Professor' Sprout' greenhouse. His voice was cool and controlled, even if the tongue that danced the words, curled and writhed in vex to spit much better- much more venomous things. "Again and lastly. I _stressss_ this is purely a travail visit and I _insisttt_ that you allow me to procure the ingredients that I need. For if I had any attention of being castigated by you, I would have done so with at least the dignity of refreshment and or the comfort of sparingly time. But alas, I have no time and with it nil patience." He hissed a few of his words, a lisp that came when he was aroused with frustration, an oral ailment that could be blamed on his crooked jaw, same with his frequent tension headaches.

Pomfrey huffed, obviously in a right state of disapproval to his hinted malice.

But he could care less.

Fuck it, she could keep the plants. She looked unlikely to entertain his task anyway.

Stupid plants! Insufferable females! _Granger!_

If this _god dammed_ headache would just _fuck_ off!

"Oh by cripes. Come in, Professor. You worked yourself into a right fit. I'll make tea and it will be sugarless, not about to honey that hornet nest of a headache of yours." Sprout sniffed exasperated, relenting from the doorway and deeper into the arboretum. Severus followed her inside, blinding pain coming in crashing waves as he moved to the afforded living space of Professor Sprout.

The plump matron hovered above her tea caddy, sieving some tea pulp from the Brown Betty as he drifted close and rested on a jamb.

Severus snuffed the comradery, his tone glassy. "I don't have time for a tea party or to pettifog my supposed infractions and ineptitude…" He was cut off as Sprout slammed down one of her silver ort bowls, a metallic shiver trembling the cart.

Her voice strained and dour, "I only invite _friends_ to tea. You are not one nor are you welcome to sit. Think this as some pence of kindness or pity if you will. You'll drawn conclusions of your own." The air was comfortable between them now that she had addressed the elephant in the room. He could not loath her for her quills or her conclusions.

Hell, it was best not to have friends.

This world was ill suited for such bonds.

He was shit made for such things.

He grunted, "I suppose so."

She looked concerned for a moment before frowning motherly. "You look pale. A wasted statement I know."

 _Right-tee-o, Madame_ , he thought humorlessly.

"No pearls for me." He assured dryly before sauntering to the way out. Gathering up a French wicker basket into his arms, and some suitable shears and trowels.

Sprout called out to him, "I'll bring the tea out for you, drink it in the garden and leave the cup on the stoop."

He grunted again.

Like a well trained circus dog. He just had to worship his master's hands.

Not that Sprout was his master by any means, but she was finer made.

Finer more refined creatures could bugger him; he was only a well trained dog running in circles.

Who apparently could set a teacup on a stoop like a shit on the lawn.

"The tea has butterbur extract, chamomile…" Her incant carried nonchalantly, perhaps to curve the prickly confrontation to ease, obvious that she was beginning to feel badly from her previous episode of unpleasantness, even if it was well founded.

 _Some things come more naturally to others,_ Severus concluded before walking out to collect his flowers.

* * *

 ** _"Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces."_**

 **Well, here is the chapter two. I'll let you know, it was a B**** to write. It ended off shorter than expected, having been rewritten at least eight times. The next chapter will be the creme da la crumb everyone wants.**

 **Now, random Unicorn trivia. The unicorn horn is called an Alicorn and was thought to be restive to poison, like the Bezoar. Kings and Queens would have drinking vessels made of it in order to detect any poison. To make sure the Alicorn was genuine, a circle would be scratched onto a surface with the horn. A scorpion or spider placed inside the circle was thought to never be able to get out.**

 _ **Leave a comment or a favorite, it helps with the development of this story. My muse is being quite the recluse right now. Updates will be slow.**_


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